Wilbur Smith’s ‘Predator’ Is A High-Octane Thrill Ride [REVIEW]

Hector Cross must hunt down his wife’s killer in Wilbur Smith and Tom Cain’s PREDATOR. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Charles D. Gaddis IV, US Navy)

Wilbur Smith’s latest novel, Predator, written with Tom Cain, is an action-packed adventure story told against the backdrop of today’s high-stakes game of global domination. 

Former operative Major Hector Cross is a man who makes “his own rules. He lived in a world of violence wherein wrongs were avenged with biblical ruthlessness: an eye for an eye and a life for a life” (4).

William Morrow

In the novel’s opening scene Cross is entangled in an unbelievably intense nightmare involving a crocodile who has the capacity to morph into a human being who is none other than Carl Hannock, a close business associate who killed Cross’s first wife, Hazel.

Hannock may be dead, but Johnny Congo is still on death row for the part he played in Hazel’s death. Thus this cloying dream torments Cross with increased frequency… especially after Congo escapes!

Lawyer Jo Stanley, Cross’s current girlfriend, blames herself when she hears the news. After all, rather than let him take the law into his own hands as he did with Hannock, she had persuaded Cross to let the courts determine Congo’s fate.

Throughout the pages of Predator, Smith and Cain reveal the oil industry’s sinister motives and introduce characters who have no regard for human life, all the while allowing readers to sift through the various layers of truth.

One thing I really appreciated here is how the authors show us the evolution of Cross’s psyche over the course of this novel. In the beginning, he is hyper focused on bringing his first wife’s killers to justice. But as the novel takes shape and Cross hunts down Congo in what becomes a breathtaking game of cat and mouse, he also does his best to protect those closest to him from the sociopathic killer.

In Predator, Smith and Cain have delivered an exciting, high-octane thriller readers won’t want to put down. Don’t miss it!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Wilbur Smith
(Photo courtesy William Morrow)

Hailed by Stephen King as “the best historical novelist,” Wilbur Smith published his first novel, When the Lion Feeds, in 1964. His books have sold more than 125 million copies worldwide and been translated into 26 languages.

Wilbur’s lifelong love affair with books began with his mother, who taught him to revere books and the written word. She read to him when he was small, but after he learned to read himself he always had a well-thumbed book in his pocket.

Born in Central Africa, he divides his time between London and South Africa. Visit his home on the Web at WilburSmithBooks.com, like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

Tom Cain
(Photo courtesy Tom Cain, Facebook)

Tom Cain is the author of the Samuel Carver books, a series about a good man who makes bad things happen to bad people. Wilbur Smith praised his debut novel, The Accident Man, as “the best first thriller I have read since The Day of the Jackal.”

The Guardian says his books are “like the Bourne movies meets Frederick Forsyth.”Other titles in the series include The Survivor (published as No Survivors in the U.S.), Assassin, and Dictator. He is currently working on the fifth book in the series.

Tom graduated from Cambridge with a degree in philosophy and art history. Prior to writing thrillers, he worked as a journalist. A former inhabitant of Moscow, Havana, and Washington, D.C., he currently resides with his family in London. Follow him on Facebook.

PREDATOR
By Wilbur Smith and Tom Cain
416 pgs. William Morrow. $28.99